"Ah, ha!" crowed Captain Bailey, "here comes the heart confessions.
Want to look out for these old bachelors, Sol. Fire away, Barzilla; let us know the worst."
"I took a fancy to her, in a way. She got in the habit of tellin' me her troubles and secrets, me bein' old enough to be her dad--"
"Aw, yes!" this from Stitt, the irrepressible. "That's an old gag.
We know--"
"WILL you shut up?" demanded Captain Sol. "Go on, Barzilla."
"Me bein' old enough to be her dad," with a glare at Captain Bailey, "and not bein' too proud to talk with hired help. I never did have that high-toned notion. 'Twa'n't so long since I was a fo'mast hand.
"So Effie told me a lot about herself. Seems she'd been over to the Cattle Show at Ostable one year, and she was loaded to the gunwale with some more or less facts that a fortune-tellin' specimen by the name of the 'Marvelous Oriental Seer' had handed her in exchange for a quarter.
"'Yup,' says she, bobbin' her head so emphatic that the sky-blue ribbon pennants on her black hair flapped like a loose tops'l in a gale of wind. 'Yup,' says she, 'I b'lieve it just as much as I b'lieve anything. How could I help it when he told me so much that has come true already? He said I'd seen trouble, and the dear land knows that's so! and that I might see more, and I cal'late that's pretty average likely. And he said I hadn't been brought up in luxury--'
"'Which wa'n't no exaggeration neither,' I put in, thinkin' of the shack over on the Neck Road where she and her folks used to live.
"'No,' says she; 'and he told me I'd always had longin's for better and higher things and that my intellectuals was above my station.
Well, ever sence I was knee high to a kitchen chair I'd ruther work upstairs than down, and as for intellectuals, ma always said I was the smartest young one she'd raised yet. So them statements give me consider'ble confidence. But he give out that I was to make a journey and get money, and when THAT come true I held up both hands and stood ready to swaller all the rest of it.'
"'So it come true, did it?' says I.
"'Um-hm,' says she, bouncin' her head again. 'Inside of four year I traveled 'way over to South Eastboro--'most twelve mile--to my Uncle Issy's fun'ral, and there I found that he'd left me nine hundred dollars for my very own. And down I flops on the parlor sofy and says I: "There! don't talk superstition to ME no more! A person that can foretell Uncle Issy's givin' anybody a cent, let alone nine hundred dollars, is a good enough prophet for ME to tie to. Now I KNOW that I'm going to marry the dark-complected man, and I'll be ready for him when he comes along. I never spent a quarter no better than when I handed it over to that Oriental Seer critter at the Cattle Show." That's what I said then and I b'lieve it yet. Wouldn't you feel the same way?'
"I said sure thing I would. I'd found out that the best way to keep Effie's talk shop runnin' was to agree with her. And I liked to hear her talk.
"'Yup,' she went on, 'I give right in then. I'd traveled same as the fortune teller said, and I'd got more money'n I ever expected to see, let alone own. And ever sence I've been sartin as I'm alive that the feller I marry will be of a rank higher'n mine and dark complected and good-lookin' and distinguished, and that he'll be name of Butler.'
"'Butler?' says I. 'What will he be named Butler for?'
"''Cause the Seer critter said so. He said he could see the word Butler printed out over the top of my head in flamin' letters. Pa used to say 'twas a wonder it never set fire to my crimps, but he was only foolin'. I know that it's all comin' out true. You ain't acquaintanced to any Butlers, are you?'
"'No,' says I. 'I heard Ben Butler make a speech once when he was gov'nor, but he's dead now. There ain't no Butlers on the Old Home shippin' lists.'
"'Oh, I know that!' she says. 'And everybody round here is homelier'n a moultin' pullet. There now! I didn't mean exactly EVERYbody, of course. But you ain't dark complected, you know, nor--'
"'No,' says I, 'nor rank nor distinguished neither. Course the handsome part might fit me, but I'd have to pass on the rest of the hand. That's all right, Effie; my feelin's have got fire-proofed sence I've been in the summer hotel business. Now you'd better run along and report to Susannah. I hear her whoopin' for you, and she don't light like a canary bird on the party she's mad with.'
"She didn't, that was a fact. Susannah Debs, who was housekeeper for us that year, was middlin' young and middlin' good-lookin', and couldn't forget it. Also and likewise, she had a suit for damages against the railroad, which she had hopes would fetch her money some day or other, and she couldn't forget that neither. She was skipper of all the hired hands and, bein' as Effie was prettier than she was, never lost a chance to lay the poor girl out. She put the other help up to pokin' fun at Effie's green ways and high-toned notions, and 'twas her that started 'em callin' her 'Lady Evelyn' in the fo'castle--servants' quarters, I mean.
"'I'm a-comin', 'screams Effie, startin' for the door. 'Susannah's in a tearin' hurry to get through early to-day,' she adds to me.
'She's got the afternoon off, and her beau's comin' to take her buggy ridin'. He's from over Harniss way somewheres and they say he's just lovely. My sakes! I wisht somebody'd take ME to ride.
Ah hum! cal'late I'll have to wait for my Butler man. Say, Mr. Wingate, you won't mention my fortune to a soul, will you? I never told anybody but you.'
"I promised to keep mum and she cleared out. After dinner, as I was smokin', along with Cap'n Jonadab, on the side piazza, a horse and buggy drove in at the back gate. A young chap with black curly hair was pilotin' the craft. He was a stranger to me, wore a checkerboard suit and a bonfire necktie, and had his hat twisted over one ear. Altogether he looked some like a sunflower goin' to seed.
"'Who's that barber's sign when it's to home?' says I to Jonadab.
He snorted contemptuous.
"'That?' he says. 'Don't you know the cut of that critter's jib?
